


Broken mirror

by phasespace



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Incest, M/M, Post DMC V, Violence as a solution to family dysfunction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 02:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18437462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phasespace/pseuds/phasespace
Summary: The thing is this: Dante has been in his line of work for a while, long enough to liken demons as souped-up, stir-crazy working dogs hungering for anything to drive their senses. This is why he will not leave Nero and Vergil to their own devices, and dreads to think of the aftermath of such a thing. He hopes the physical exertion will tame both their demons, if just for the day.Just one day. He cannot bring himself to ask for more.





	Broken mirror

Hell unfolds with quiet complacence of the inevitable, for the fates hold greater sway here than anywhere else. The eternal roll of thunder over its bone-white plains; the violent creation and destruction of its denizens.

Its infernal silence is broken only by a vulgar swear.

Vergil cocks his head. He considers the figure below him.

“I win.” 

 _Speaking of things eternal,_ he thinks drily.

Dante is pinned by a twisted arm and a knee pressed to the spine, pushed to the ground with no small amount of vindictive savagery on Vergil’s part.

“Aren’t you a regular genius,” Dante struggles out, and his voice turns into a hoarse wheeze when Vergil gives his arm a sharp tug. “You want a sticker for your troubles? A cute little star printed ‘Good Job, Asshole’?”

Vergil chooses not to reply. He mentally counts to ten before releasing his hold, then backs away to neatly fold his legs. He places the Yamato on his lap, and a large swathe of grass is pulled to clean his weapon from blood. It’s a crude replacement; but far better than to sheathe a sullied blade.

He watches Dante from the corner of his eye; studying him, for sparring is as much a mental effort as a physical one. Small tics and habits picked up over time, now weaponised to give him an edge in battle. Even through their constant fighting, he had not anticipated the ease at which decades of separation were swiftly amended in the span of hours. As if they were all too-eager to reclaim what was once theirs.

For a while, Dante does not move. Arms awkwardly squashed beneath him, face pushed into the dirt like he belongs to it. Then he rolls onto his back in one fluid motion— stretches himself out, spread-eagle. His sweat-stuck fringe splays across his face, lax muscles painting a perfect picture of lazed satisfaction.

Vergil’s fingers twitch against the fabric of his coat.

“Why are you here, I wonder.”

Dante lets out a bark of laughter. “What,” he says, “sick of me already?”

His brother’s penchant for theatrics pervades even the most simple tasks. He will not simply answer the question, is pathologically incapable of it— instead, he will drag out a sigh, prop himself up on an elbow and pull out his best shit-eating grin, the kind that tugs at his eyes and lips in a manner that can only be described as _tasteless_.

“Don’t,” Vergil bites out, “misconstrue my question on purpose.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dante says. He pulls himself up, and it is a slow, laborious process. Vergil knows he’ll favour his left leg. There’s a deep gash in it that will take a good part of an hour to heal over completely.

Once standing, he dusts himself off. A futile effort; his hands are caked in blood congealed with dirt. Vergil’s jaw tightens.

“Dante.”

“I was getting to it, okay? Look— let me ask you a better question.” He pivots on the spot with arms outstretched, leaving his coat aflutter. “Look around, brother. There’s nothing for us here. Zero. _Nada_.”

Vergil’s hands tense over the Yamato.

“What are we doing here, Vergil?”

“Evidently, you have some idea,” he says, dry. He knows what Dante is about to say, has been expecting it with each passing hour, bringing them closer to the end of infinity. Their infinity.

“Vergil,” Dante says. Such a simple thing, uttered without his usual bravado— could almost be described as gentle, if his brother were capable of such a thing.

“Let’s go home.”

 _Home._ Vergil closes his eyes. He takes in a breath. Breathes out.

“You know that’s not possible.”

He raises his voice above Dante’s sounds of disbelief. “You knew it wouldn’t be possible, yet you’re here. I’m asking you why.”

Dante pauses to level him with an unreadable look. “Can’t answer that for yourself, huh?” He laughs and shakes out a smile. Vergil can count the years of their separation by the grooves on his brother’s face. Some well-worn, some newly sprung— and they twist his easy smiles in ways that elude even his grasp.

“Well,” Dante says. “Guess I can’t say I’m too surprised about that.”

The statement is acidic and coils bitter around his throat; this is not an accusation or provocation. It is disappointment.

“Excuse me?”

Faux laughter. “You didn’t think I came down all this way just to slap swords, now, did you?”

“Ever the wordsmith,” Vergil snarls. The retort comes easy; but he is struggling to labour his breathing against the increasing pace of his heart; against his broken selves and fractured thoughts.

How could Dante possibly know? V and Urizen were but new additions to his mental patchwork, clashing discordant against each other in their disparity, cutting white-sharp edges through his mind. If V’s memories were vivid in what could only be described as expressions of quintessential humanity— loneliness, desperation, helplessness— Urizen’s was of an entirely different dimension, taking on an almost alien quality in its steady drone of hatred, hatred, _hatred_ —

And amidst the clash of memories is the calm eye of the storm. A void frightful in its totality.

Ten long years under Mundus. Physically expelled and eradicated.

It leaves him with just a handful of lucid memories. Memories which he can call belonging to a man named _Vergil._ Dante would be happy to know that he is centrepiece in all of them, like a red banner to his bull.

“Home,” he echoes. His voice does not break.

“Yeah.” Dante is utterly still. Perhaps he is expecting a fight.

Vergil thumbs at the hilt of the Yamato. He wonders if his ears were playing tricks on him; was that truly an intake of breath, or simply the sharp hiss of steel? He unsheathes his sword and makes a show of inspecting it, turning it this way and that in an almost leisurely manner.

Reflected within its glassy depths is his own visage. It is warped and twisted by the infernal light of the underworld, catching at his eyes in the strangest ways. He entertains a thought; that in each facet resting on the tip of the Yamato were all the possible choices he could take, with each and every choice branching off into a broken mirror of their own universe. The thought brings a wry twist to his lips. That would be a first— the fates were losing their grip on him, after all this time.

“That is what you want?”

Perhaps he will ultimately fail in piecing together the fragments of his many selves. Perhaps it does not matter— whatever state of coherency his current self is in, whoever he is right now— he is finally given the choice to shape it to his will.

“It is.”

He angles his sword, and this time it catches Dante’s tell-tale red. Upside-down but unmistakable— his brother’s eyes are wide.

“Then so it shall be.”

He sheathes the sword and sees Dante’s smile first-hand. It is heart-wrenching in its familiarity. The first true smile he’s seen in a long time.

 _And so it should be,_ Vergil thinks.

 

*

 

 _Home,_ for now, is a beat-up, tobacco scent-coated trailer housing more people than it ever should. It is a far-cry from their childhood manor, and its laughable inadequacy leaves Dante raw with nerves.

He’d phoned Nero while Vergil was out of earshot, in fact; it hadn’t taken long for his requests to turns into pleas.

_Yeah— I know, I get it, just take the girls out for a few hours, okay? He’s— we’ve all had a rough— look, Nero, I owe you one, I really do—_

Nero nearly blows the speakers out. Something awful wrenches in him during the entire thing— not just for kicking the kid away first thing they come back, but because it’s a particular brand of abandonment he’d never hoped to see again, let alone be the giver of. His voice near breaks over the crackle of his receiver, talking as if to force the encyclopaedic volume of his and his brother’s entire history into a single sentence.

_I really, really can’t risk this, kid._

Nero hangs up on him without another word.

That is how Dante falls out of Hell; and how he finds himself sitting on a couch with his head in his hands. The trailer had turned out to be blissfully empty. Passably clean, even. He wasn’t kidding, he really does owe Nero— and more than just his life.

To his right is the sound of running water. It is Vergil taking a shower. Brother. His.

Dante breathes out. In all honesty, he hadn’t expected to be back here at all. All he remembers is hurtling down to the Qliphoth roots with one thought burning vivid in his mind, repeated desperate like a prayer: he will never let Vergil fall again; else they will fall together.

So fall they did, like the proper devils they were.

Dante closes his eyes. Vergil’s presence tugs heavy at the compass of his mind. No phantom, no power-hungry caricature— not a faded memory, but him, really him. He lets his mind cycle through the traces him; the heavy sound of rivulets of redirected water, the faint tang of blood. The Prussian blue of his coat, draped unceremoniously over a chair.

The water turns off. Dante scrambles into a slouch when he hears the click of an opening door.

Vergil strides out smelling faintly of soap. The cramped walls of the van to nothing to mitigate his proud gait. Dante almost regrets lending him his sleeveless shirt— it suits him much better than it ever suited himself. The sight of his brother in casual clothes is strange in all sense of the word, but what truly throws him off is the way he is combing back his hair in sharp, tidy motions. The behaviour is so quintessentially human, so painfully mundane— that Dante can’t help but stare.

“Hey, you look good,” he blurts out. “Almost passing human,” he quickly amends.

Vergil does not bother to turn, will not allow Dante the liberty to break his flow. “And you look like a malnourished mongrel of a dog, brother.”

“Very funny,” Dante says, and he ignores the tightening in his jaw. He scratches at his stubble and tries again. “Think it needs a shave?”

Vergil is silent for a breath or two before dropping his hands to his sides. “Do whatever you wish.”

The finality in his tone tells him everything he needs to know.

“Gotcha,” he says. He sprawls out on the couch and presses his hands over his eyes.

Twenty years, maybe even ten years back— he would have forced the attention from his brother with a snarl and a flash of steel if he felt deserving of it.

Now, he simply can’t seem to muster the energy.

Vergil is still for a moment; Dante does not hear anything. Then, he hears footsteps. They are whisper-soft against the floor.

“Move over,” Vergil says.

“Move over yourself.” His reply comes muffled against his arm.

“Dante.” Exasperation. At least his brother was capable of reacting. “You’re on my book.”

Ah. So that’s what it was, digging uncomfortable into his back.

He shifts and picks up the book, angling himself so that Vergil has to reach over to get it. “What’s so special about this thing, anyway?”

“Dante.” His name is repeated in warning.

Dante is familiar with self-betrayal, has become quite good at it; which is why he allows himself to lean into heat behind his spoken name, if only for a while.

He takes a moment to curl around the book and press his hands over it; and if he gets to feel the prickle of Vergil’s stare, well, that’s just a bonus. He traces around the _V_ which juts out ever so slightly, and sees how the pages within are bent from use. He’s only seen the book a handful of times in their childhood manor. He can only guess at its deep personal value.

Whatever its purpose, it is mostly remembered as a source of spite. A secret; something which kept them from being twins in the absolute sense. But even when his fingers itched and his mind tempted him forwards, he had never tried to steal it, to open it for himself.

There were some lines that even he did not cross.

“A lot of trees died to make this,” he drawls. “Seems like a waste, don’t you think?”

“Give it,” says Vergil, “to me.”

Dante turns his head to stare into the eyes of his brother, and the message in them is clear.

_Make me._

Vergil’s lips twitch in the promise of— something. Perhaps a snarl to beat him back with; perhaps a cold shrug to leave him estranged.

“All these years,” he says, “and you still persist on playing your immature little games.”

Dante’s heart makes itself heard by the rushing in his ears.

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

The crease by Vergil’s mouth deepens. “You’re something else, truly.”

“Thanks.”

“Was that really a compliment, I wonder.”

“When it’s from you, my dear big brother, it always is.”

The folds on Vergil’s mouth shifts and blossoms. It twists his features into all things ugly, and it is everything Dante wants to see.

“Curious. Then when I would have my Yamato through your chest, would you call it a gift?”

 _When_ , not _if_. “Why don’t you see for yourself,” Dante murmurs. He isn’t paying attention to his words. His eyes are locked onto Vergil’s.

Frozen stares, tense hands. Then— a slight dilation of the pupils. Their muscles uncoil in unison.

Dante shoves the book beneath the couch, then leaps up in a bid to seek higher ground. Vergil expects his lurching grab and twists out of the way easily— but Dante is one step ahead. He shoots out a leg and hits him on the back of the knee, and it’s enough to fling the man off balance. He catches a flash of a snarl as Vergil trips forward, and Dante uses the advantage to fist a handful of his hair and pull _up_ , muscles tightening and coiling around the point with unrelenting force until he gets what he’s looking for.

_“Dante.”_

His name is hissed out through gritted teeth. It is satisfying, viscerally so, and he’s dizzy with impulses telling him to pull, to bite and gouge— suspects it’s not quite human, but he doesn’t care; doesn’t need to care when it’s with Vergil.

Vergil, who is twisting underneath him like a snake, and Dante keeps his grip locked-set in response— until he is forced to let go with a yelp.

“The hell? Did you just _bite_ me?”

Iron hands grip his shoulder. Dante barely gets a chance to retaliate when he’s pulled back under an expulsion of strength, slamming him against the walls of the RV— and the impact of it forces the breath out of him.

In fact, it’s enough to leave the van shaking and rattling underneath them. Dante is seeing stars.

“I win.”

Vergil’s voice trickles hot into his ear. Dante fists his hands into the fabric of his brother’s shirt and growls. The taste of his petty triumph is something so uniquely Vergil. So dearly missed.

That’s when he hears it— the slam of a door and a shouted expletive. Vergil stiffens against him, and the sensation of it sends a chord of discordance through his own body, cutting across the heavy beat of blood that intoxicates more surely than any alcohol.

“Shit,” Dante breathes.

The press of Vergil’s frame leaves him with hardly a whisper. It’s the final snap he needs to shake his thoughts back into coherency.

“Christ, Dante— you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m—“ Dante tries to peel himself off the wall, but he stumbles and ends up leaning against it. “Feeling just peachy, kid.”

He blinks a few more times. He squints and focuses his gaze on Nero, who’s visibly bristling— his hands curl and uncurl as if in want of a weapon, and the white of his snarl is stark against his beet-red face. He looks up to see Vergil— he appears mildly amused, and Dante can’t quite decide if that’s a good thing. He looks back, and—

“Holy shit.”

There’s a man-shaped dent in the wall.

 _Demon-shaped,_ he thinks weakly. _No man could have survived that._

He blurts out the first thought that comes to his mind. “Who’s gonna pay for this?”

“No one.” Nico strides into the van with her eyes alight. “I was thinking that space needed sprucing up. Now I got evidence for Sparda’s own son being here.”

Dante can feel Vergil’s smirk by his peripheral.

 _This is going to be one hell of a doozy,_ he thinks _._ He can almost hear the gears of his brain screeching from pushing his thoughts through something that feels like sticky tar. He’d asked Nero to take the gang out for a moment, thinking it’d be better to gradually acclimatise Vergil to ordinary living that was anything but.

Then he gets slammed into a wall, _a moment_ passes, and now he has a positively incensed demon-hybrid on his hands.

Dante clears his throat. He unrolls his best smile. “Fraid to say this is a standard Tuesday for us, folks. Better get used to it.”

“There even gonna be a van by the end of this week, then?”

His thoughts halt momentarily.

“Lady,” he says. He watches Lady squeeze herself through Nero and the entrance with a look of grim determination that sits timeless on her face. The kid barely registers her presence; he’s stewing, and Dante needs to get to him as soon as possible.

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” he laughs out, and it’s an effort against the seizing in his chest. “We’re all responsible adults here.”

This earns him a collective look of disbelief. “Okay— a little bit hopeless, maybe, but responsible enough.”

Vergil snorts. “Maybe for one. I could not say the same for the other.”

Dante faces his brother and mouths a _shut up._

He doesn’t need to worry, though; Lady is already making her way to the seclusion of their workshop. “I guess we’ll see, soon enough.”

The door clicks shut behind her.

“Uh,” Nico speaks up, “I’ll go see how she’s doing.”

“Yeah,” sighs out Dante. “Thanks, Nico.”

She throws out a _peace_ before following Lady’s steps. “Oh, and welcome back, by the way.” She turns back to shoot him a smile. Not just any smile— there’s a knowing air to it that makes Dante feel light-headed— though he suspects it’s mostly from the hit.

“That means you too, broody.”

Vergil does not reply, just sends her a frigid glare until she’s behind the door.

The ensuing silence is blissful, and Dante’s mind goes blank for a second. That’s when a realisation dawns on him, and hits his body like a truck; he’s really fucking exhausted. He hadn’t had the chance to rest— not the fitful snatches microsleep, but real, deep sleep— ever since entering Hell.

A sudden change in air pressure snaps him back into focus. Dante does not need to look behind to parry Nero’s punch. The party must go on, and his body will need to wait a while longer. There’s one final loose end to tie up.

“Alright, kid,” he says, and he isn’t too proud of the strain in his voice— the kid’s gotten stronger. Much stronger. “You’re coming with us.”

“Where?”

The words are spoken in unison by Vergil and his son. He feels the corners of his lips pull.

“Out, preferably somewhere with a lot of space,” he says, “we need to test out that new arm of yours, remember?”

He grabs Nero’s shoulders, who violently shakes him off with a snarl. Dante ignores it. “Oh— and if you think I’ve forgotten about that bitch-slap of yours, you’ve got another thing coming for you, kid”

Nero turns back to level him with a frosted stare of genuine malice, and the striking familiarity of it throws Dante for a loop.

“You’re gonna be getting much more than that for the shit you just pulled on me.”

 _Fair enough_ , he thinks wanly.

“That means you too, _pops_.”

The word is spat out like poison and slides off Vergil’s unflinching form. “I’ve a few theories as to what drives your Devil Trigger,” he says in response. “It’ll be interesting to see it.”

Dante suppresses a sigh at his brother’s tone of detached fascination.

“I’ll be happy to show you,” snarls Nero. They leave the van out of their own volition; Dante follows. Out of the corner of his eye he catches a shadow, and Dante looks up to find Trish perched on the rooftops, her high-heels gripping the tiles as surely as any mountain goat. Only a demon could pull that off. She notices his gaze, smiles, and sends him a wink before loping away.

Another ghost of the past they’ll have to face some day. Dante appreciates her thoughtfulness, all the same.

“I hope you’re not here for my arm again, you sick psycho.”

“It’s not within the realms of impossibility.”

“Jesus— what’s wrong with you?”

“Okay,” Dante cuts in. “Break it up, you two.”

This earns him the surreal sight of two identical narrow-eyed stares. He lets out a shit-eating grin against the slam of his mammalian instincts urging him to _run,_ grabs both their shoulders, and pushes them forward.

“We’re gonna work things out, okay?”

He raises a hand. Even in this state, the rush of energy he feels at the solid weight of his Devil Arm is undeniable.

“We’ll work ‘em out Sparda-style.”

The thing is this: Dante has been in his line of work for a while, long enough to liken demons as souped-up, stir-crazy working dogs hungering for anything to drive their senses. This is why he will not leave Nero and Vergil to their own devices, and dreads to think of the aftermath of such a thing. He hopes the physical exertion will tame both their demons, if just for the day.

Just one day. He cannot bring himself to ask for more.

 

*

 

The outskirts of Redgrave has no shortage of quiet, broken places on offer for the three descendants of Sparda. They find refuge by an abandoned parking lot, and it doesn’t take long for the ground to hiss from blood on summer-hot cement.

It’s an ugly, unfettered thing. Unspoken words channeled into flashing steel, grievances and anger encoded into each reckless swing. Vergil is receptive to Nero’s tune, and he focuses on anticipating and parrying to allow for Nero’s actions to flourish, so that he may listen.

There is beauty in his power, and nobility in his unflinching will. This, Vergil will not deny.

By the time the sun swings over their heads, Vergil notices a shift. Nero’s actions become less raw and desperate. Sometimes he will shoot him a smirk, and wipe his hands across his nose in a manner he presumes provocative, but only manages to smudge more blood on it. His eyes sharpen with thought, picking up his movements and what they might telegraph.

With this, their fight becomes less of a one-sided onslaught and more of a push and pull. Vergil had always found a measure of thrill in the ebb and flow of swordplay. While he and Dante easily fall into their familiar dance, it’s harder with Nero— especially given his propensity for using the brute force of his fists.

He supposes that with time, it’s a tune they will master together.

 

 

“Dude, check it out,” calls out Nero.

Vergil is sitting on his haunches and inspecting his dislocated shoulder. He had called an end to their fight with the sun setting low over the horizon, and Nero had conceded with no small amount of taunts revolving around old men and stamina, or lack of thereof.

“There’s a sad pile of clothes over here. Oh— wait. It’s just Dante.”

“He’s asleep?”

“You betcha.”

Vergil pops his shoulder back into place with a hiss, then makes his way over. Dante had withdrawn from their fight a good hour ago, laying himself under a tree that had seen itself fit to sprout up between unforgiving concrete.

Nero is nudging the man none-too gently with his boot by the time he gets there. “Want me to wake him up?”

The sight of Dante in sleep could only be described as something of concentrated carelessness. Hair scattered haphazardly across his eyes, beads of drool already forming in the corners of his mouth. But Vergil isn’t fooled by the sight; the only reason Dante could afford the appearance of vulnerability is in complete belief of his own capabilities.

“No,” he decides. “Let him sleep.”

“Wait— seriously?” Vergil presses down a smirk against Nero’s look of incredulity.

“Yes. After all,” he chances a glance at Nero, “he looked as if he’d been to hell and back.”

This earns him an amused huff. “I’ll watch over him,” continues Vergil. “You may go.”

“Wow,” says Nero. He bounces on the balls of his feet, opens his mouth, closes it, and Vergil’s on the point of snapping at him when he speaks.

“Hey, how much do you remember from— when you were V?”

This gives him some pause. “I couldn’t say.”

He isn’t being avoidant when he says this; some memories stick persistent while others eventually surface like unwanted cysts. Vergil had been meditating when the memory of eating the fruit of the Qliphoth tree struck him, and it left him dry-heaving upon the hills of Hell. The bitter irony of it offered little comfort at the time.

“Oh,” Nero says. The shift in tone is noticeable. “Whatever.”

The kid does not move; something is keeping him here.

“Nero,” Vergil starts, but is interrupted.

“You know, I gotta hand it to you,” Nero says, “can’t pay for child support if you’re in Hell, right? Clever; very clever.”

Vergil keeps silent; he doesn’t know where Nero’s going with this.

“But you can’t keep running from me, old man. Cause I’ll find you. Always will.”

“Good. I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he says, and means it.

“Well,” this puts Nero at a momentary loss for words. “As long as you know.”

His voice goes quiet. Vergil lifts his eyes from Dante.

“Don’t let me keep you, Nero.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

Nero takes a few steps back, hesitates— then turns away for good. Vergil finds words stuck uncomfortable in his throat. Curious, for he can’t think of anything to say. With the kid’s exit comes a measure of peace, as well as a keen awareness of the lonely silence hanging between broken spaces once occupied.

He stands for a few more moments before folding himself down. He knows what lying on cold concrete does to humans; this is the justification he makes as he lifts Dante’s head onto his lap.

With this, Vergil settles. He waits for his brother to wake.

 

 

For a while, he practices breathing; simply breathing. He first times his breaths to an internal clock. There is tranquility in its rhythm, like the swings of the Yamato, singing sweet in the air. And when the shadows deepen just a fraction, he tries mimicking Dante’s deep breaths in sleep. An amusing exercise; if not pointless. His mind then wanders to the steady motions of the branches above him, and he thinks about his throne, and Dante walking up to him, and he thinks, finally, after so many years—and welling up inside is visceral, burning _hatred_.

Vergil starts. It causes Dante to snort, who nuzzles his face into the crook of his legs before settling.

No, Vergil thinks. That isn’t right. That isn’t him.

The idea of paying attention to his breaths rapidly loses its appeal. Vergil produces his book from the folds of his coat. He reads instead.

The handwriting is clinical in its accuracy, but lyrical in its sloping shapes. Any impressions for professionalism are marred by splotches of ink that litter the page, and they are from nothing more the clumsy enthusiasm of a child. Vergil runs his fingers over the familiar texture of it, and notes how the paper is starting to thin. Soon, it will fall apart; but not so soon that it will do so in his hands.

He gently lifts the pages until he finds what he is looking for.

“Without stay or prop but my own weak mortality…” _I bore the load of this eternal quietude, the unchanging gloom, and the three fixed shapes._

Hearing his voice fill the silence helps, and so does the steady pressure on his legs. He had kept this one for its imagery, and how vivid they burned in his mind. Such simple pleasures; now but another relic locked away in the past.

 _“_ And ever day by day I thought I grew more gaunt and ghostly _—“_

_Oftentimes I prayed, intense, that Death would take me from the vale and all its burdens._

He shifts his gaze from the pages and alights it on the sleeping form of Dante. He reaches out a hand and cradles his jaw, softly as if to mitigate any hint or suggestion of his presence. Dante had asked him if he should shave. Vergil scrapes his thumb over his stubble and registers the pleasant buzz it sends through his system. He quietly commits this to memory. Every small detail, re-familiarised. The split-ends of his hair, the gentle flutter of his eyelids. The last time he could study his brother this up-close was in their childhood manor.

_I have no comfort for you; no not one; I cannot cry, why then, do you sleep?_

He lifts his fingers up and tugs at the soft skin just above Dante’s mouth. So many new folds he does not recognise. He supposes it adds nuance, as time is want to do. Much-needed, he might’ve thought. Now, he’s not so sure. He applies a faint pressure, and it pulls Dante’s skin into their natural state; a smirk. Vergil smirks back.

_For Heaven is parted from you, and the Earth knows you not._

His hand travels up further. He gathers the fringes of Dante’s hair which stick uncomfortable to his brother’s eyes and mouth, pulling it back out of the way. Now his fingers do not need to twitch with the impulse to brush it away every time he sees them.

“Better,” he says.

 _Better,_ his mind echoes. The carpark is silent. So is Dante.

Vergil lifts his hand and folds it to his side. He is finding it hard to read when the words swim in his vision, so he looks out over the horizon. He cannot think; nor can he fight. He is left watching the last rays of the sun, and feeling how soft its light falls on his skin.

Dante's voice comes quiet as the rustle of the leaves above.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been able to appreciate anything like this.”

Vergil lowers his head. If there is dampness on his cheeks, Dante does not comment on it.

“You and me both, brother.”

Dante’s smile trickles slow onto his face. Vergil leans into it. Their noses touch.

Once, it was an outstretched hand and a flash of steel. A desperate shout released into the unblinking void, swallowed up by the roar of water.

Now, the only thing they can hear is the occasional _ping_ of cooling cement and a summer-sticky breeze. Dante’s hands do not grasp air, but instead curl around the back of his head, fingernails gently scraping across skin.

There is gravity here, and Vergil is falling. But the gap does not widen.

Instead, he closes it; and Dante arches into him— eager, so eager. He kisses back hard enough to hurt, and it’s everything new yet so deeply familiar to Vergil, for Dante smells of blood and sweat and something so heart-wrenchingly _theirs_ ; and when Dante gasps from drawn blood, he presses a smirk against his skin— for he thinks, yes, this is how it always has been, as eternal as the fates.

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of those cases where the itch to see more material for this pairing overcame my fear of writing, after not having written for so many months. I'm not 100% familiar with the canon especially outside of the games, so I apologise if anything is inconsistent.
> 
> The poem is a bastardised version of Keats' Fall of Hyperion. I'm a sap, it's true.


End file.
